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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26728891">trust me (though the night is dark)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaiata/pseuds/anaiata'>anaiata</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Six of Crows Series - Leigh Bardugo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, Mild Angst, Mild Language, They talk, even though i ship kanej, i needed to post this before i started overediting it, inej pov, ish, kaz pov added, maybe-panic-attack, no beta we die like men, no mourners no funerals, this is about as much romance as i'm capable of writing</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 09:20:21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>4,984</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26728891</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/anaiata/pseuds/anaiata</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“You’re here to see if I can offer you more than debts and words and— I should tell you, shouldn’t I?” he says, and perhaps he is speaking more to himself than to her because his sentences are more fragmented than usual, “I should tell you everything. You deserve it. You’ve always deserved it.”</p><p>or</p><p>The rooftop, the night before Inej leaves for Ravka.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Kaz Brekker &amp; Inej Ghafa, Kaz Brekker/Inej Ghafa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>13</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>174</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Inej</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this chapter is inej pov, next chapter is kaz pov of the exact same scene. they can be read in either order.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The night before she leaves for Ravka, Inej finds herself walking through the Barrel, on the ground— for once— just wandering. She knows Ketterdam like the back of her hand, knows every canal and every street, rooftop, and gang. She wonders if she will miss it. </p><p>The night before she leaves for Ravka, Inej finds Kaz on the roof of the Slat, sitting on the ledge, watching the city below them. She wonders how long he has been waiting. Though she knows he is aware of her presence, Inej just stands there, five steps behind him, watching him, letting her eyes rove over the sharp angles of his body. </p><p>He has done so much for her, and she <em> will </em>come back, even if just to trade information on slavers, even if Ketterdam holds too many painful memories. But there is so much she doesn’t know, so much she isn’t sure of. Like where they stand with each other, or the strength of whatever it is between them. How they will say goodbye.</p><p>She takes a breath, then steps forward and sits herself down beside him. “Everything is ready.” she says, and her voice is weaker than she would’ve liked.</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>“I leave at seven bells tomorrow.”</p><p>“I know.”</p><p>Inej searches his face, hopeful, but all she finds is blankness. Careful, careful blankness. Before her spirits can fall, however, he speaks again.</p><p>“You’re here to see if I can offer you more than debts and words and— I should tell you, shouldn’t I?” he says, and perhaps he is speaking more to himself than to her because his sentences are more fragmented than usual, “I should tell you everything. You deserve it. You’ve always deserved it.”</p><p>Something warm and unexpected swells in her chest, but she says nothing. She had pleaded, once, and he had pushed her away.</p><p>He hesitates, turning to her, and she can see the spark of fear in his eyes as clearly as she knows he can see the surprise in hers. He swallows, takes a breath. “What do you know? About my brother? About,” he gestures to his hands, his gloves, “this?”</p><p>Inej wonders, vaguely, at the connection. “Only what you’ve told me,” she hesitates, “And what you told Rollins.”</p><p>He scowls at the name, then runs a gloved hand through his hair. “Ghezen,” he rasps, then pauses, “Where do I start?”</p><p>“At the beginning,” she suggests.</p><p>And so he does, his voice low, his eyes focused on the city below them. His words are terse, any ragged edges clipped away and hidden, his sentences emotionless and almost brutally efficient. He carves out the skeleton of his childhood the same way he would give her the details of a new plan.</p><p>She learns of a brother and a dead father and a farm sold. Of their arrival to Ketterdam. Of plans and Filip and Jacob Hertzoon and his wife and Saskia and profit made. He hesitates for a moment, wavering, then his iron will clamps down and he speaks of the final deal too good to be true. Of the cold and the streets and the bridge under which they slept.</p><p>It is then that he pauses, expression rigid, unreadable. “How much do you know,” he asks quietly, “About the Queen’s Lady Plague?”</p><p>Her eyes widen, ever so slightly. “Enough.” </p><p>He nods, then continues, his shoulders curling inwards. The tone of his voice seems to shift, the cadence of his speech changing in a way she can’t quite put a finger to. His words are quicker, sharper, more uncertain. “We were still on the streets when the outbreak started. Jordie and I were soon both sick. There wasn’t any hope for us. It wasn’t long before we both had fevers, wasn’t long I became delirious, wasn’t long before Jordie, well, died. The bodymen—” he chokes, “The bodymen—”</p><p>Something breaks, then, and Kaz falls silent. He pulls his good leg up against his chest and turns his face away. Inej can feel the weight of Kaz’s memory, the pressure of what he is trying to make himself say, like a ghost or a shadow, spilling over from the abyss. She stills, unwilling to break the spell.</p><p>It takes a moment before he continues speaking. Even then, his voice is empty with forced distance, barely above a whisper, and Inej has a sudden, fierce urge to interrupt and say <em> you don’t have to do this </em> because every line of his body is tense and far too controlled, but he keeps talking. Keeps pushing forwards. And so she listens.</p><p>“What you have to know,” he says, his voice shaded with bitterness, “Is that when a plague strikes the Barrel, there’s no escaping it. It’s too crowded here; there’s too many people, and too many people make too many corpses. Bodies pile up in the streets, and they’re not— Sometimes, they’re not all dead. I wasn’t.”</p><p>Something in her twists in sickening horror.</p><p>“The bodymen don’t check, though, because why bother? They just tumble you onto the sickboat and move on. I was too weak to protest when they pushed Jordie on, too weak to cry out when they pushed me on, too weak to say anything when they pushed us off at—”</p><p>Again, he cuts off abruptly, this time visibly shaking, whatever mask of calm he had been holding cracking, falling away. A gloved hand comes up and scrubs angrily at his eyes and, even though his face is still turned away, Inej is struck with the realization that Kaz— Kaz Brekker, Dirtyhands, King of the Barrel— is crying.</p><p>“Kaz,” she says softly, then stops when he flinches at her voice. </p><p>“Pathetic,” Kaz mutters, “Pathetic. What kind of Barrel boss fucking cries— faints— can’t even talk about this without—” His breath is coming in short, harsh gasps.</p><p>“Kaz.”</p><p>“Don’t touch me!”</p><p>“I wasn’t going to,” she says quietly, firmly, “Breathe, Kaz.” </p><p>Kaz forces himself to take a breath, still shaking, then presses his forehead against his knee, eyes closed. His body is angled away from her.</p><p>“We’re on top of the Slat, looking over the Barrel. It is almost two bells. Stay with me, Kaz. What do you need?”</p><p>“<em> Talk </em>.”</p><p>She freezes. Her mouth is suddenly dry, her mind landing on the one topic she can talk about here, now. She forces her lips to open anyways, and the words tumble out.</p><p>“There was a man,” she begins, and he stills a little, “In the Menagerie.”</p><p>Trust for trust. Truth for truth. She knows Kaz well enough to see the shame he is failing to hide and to recognize the trust he is giving her, precious and absolute. He would not feel so desperately vulnerable, perhaps, if she lays down her armor as well.</p><p>“He was Ravkan. He’d chosen me because he recognized me, from one of my family’s shows outside Caryeva. He said he watched me on the high wire.” She can smell him, the memory of garlic masked with vanilla, cloying and sweet and overwhelming. “When he— took me to bed, that night, I couldn’t escape. Couldn’t leave my body behind, like I usually did, with the past anchoring me there.”</p><p>Inej’s heart pounds.</p><p>“That was the worst night.”</p><p>“We will find those slavers,” Kaz promises, “And they will hurt.”</p><p>They are not kind words, but her parents had offered her enough of those already. This is a darker kind of understanding, bred and strained from Barrel waters, tangible and unflinching. It soothes some jagged hollow in her soul.</p><p>She looks at Kaz, and finds him looking at her.</p><p>“Go on,” she whispers.</p><p>A gulp of air, held, slowly let out. He turns back to the city. His fists are clenched tight. “Reaper’s Barge,” he says after a moment, voice thick and raw, “Reaper’s Barge. They pushed us off there. I woke up surrounded by corpses. Waited for the bodymen to come back, to add more bodies or to burn them, but they didn’t. Shore was far away. I was too weak to swim the distance by myself.”</p><p><em> By myself. </em>A single, nauseating thought enters her mind.</p><p>“Ask how I got back,” he says flatly.</p><p>“How?” She fights to keep the horror from her voice. She already knows.</p><p>“Jordie.”</p><p><em> Saints </em>.</p><p>His voice, already shaky, turns cruel, its edges harsh and biting as if daring her to comment, daring himself break, daring himself to relive the moment again and again and again—</p><p>“Do you know what rotting flesh looks like? Smells like?” he shudders, “Feels like, bloated, distended with water, skin sloughing off beneath your fingers? Because I do, and I can’t forget. I can’t forget, Inej. That’s what Rollins did,” he snarls, something wild and hateful bristling in his tone, “That’s what happened to me.”</p><p>It makes sense. It all makes sense. Gloves. Touch. Nightmares. Hatred, vast and dark and black. She <em> gets </em>it.</p><p>(She thinks of a young boy clinging to his brother’s corpse, helpless, and she <em> gets </em> it.)</p><p>She wants to ask how he did it. She wants to ask if that was his unmaking, his <em>re</em>making, the same way the slave ship was hers. She wants to ask if he’s ever told anyone. She wants to ask if he is okay.</p><p>She knows the answers to those questions. She voices a different one. </p><p>“Did it help? Revenge.”</p><p>Kaz is silent for a long moment, and she wonders if she’s pushing too far.</p><p>“No,” he says finally, voice cracking, “Not enough.”</p><p>Inej’s heart breaks.</p><p>“Oh, Kaz,” she murmurs. <em> I’m sorry. </em></p><p>Kaz shifts a little, but stays silent. She wonders if he’s as at loss of what to say as she is. </p><p>How does one comfort Dirtyhands? He will not appreciate pity, or sympathy. Righteous anger, she can offer (<em> a promise to cut Pekka Rollins’ heart out, a promise to make him suffer </em>), but it feels insincere, in a way, especially after what had just been said. </p><p>Does Kaz even want comfort? Would he recognize it, or would it echo hollowly, slide off him like droplets of water on a wax leaf?</p><p>“Thank you for telling me,” she settles on instead, letting the words hang softly in the night between them.</p><p>He finally turns to her, then, and his gaze is weighted with an intensity she cannot name. “You know everything, now.”</p><p>It all comes down to trust, in the end, trust between two monsters who have turned their scars into weapons, trust like a key, a flower with petals of wrought glass, beautiful and so, so fragile. She places it next to the soft flame that burns beneath her ribs and guards it with her claws. “You can trust me,” she promises. She never expected him to voice his reply. </p><p>“I do, Inej. I do.”</p><p>Her heart stutters. Her breath catches in surprise. For a moment, Inej revels in the weight, the <em> cost </em> of those words spoken in the Barrel, worth more than flowers or rings or a hundred treasures. <em> Kaz— </em></p><p>“Inej,” Kaz breathes, voice tight, “Let’s talk about something else.”</p><p>(Unsaid is the <em> please </em>, the rawness in his voice, the acknowledgement that Kaz, despite growing up on a farm, is still a Barrel rat and that he has always seen weakness as unforgivable.)</p><p>She looks at him, really looks at him, and she understands. She does not mind.</p><p> </p><p>And so she tells stories, reports on Jesper and Wylan, living in the mansion, and her parents, leaving with her tomorrow. She plucks out memories from her childhood and talks of pointless games and jokes and quibbles and feels an odd swell of pride when Kaz cracks a genuine smile. She hasn’t talked this much in a long time, but she lets her voice act as an anchor or a rope, drawing him out of memories that no one ought to have.</p><p>When he starts speaking again, they talk of future adventures and plans and plots until their throats are dry and the city begins to wake. They lapse into a comfortable quiet.</p><p>They cannot see the sun from the Slat, but they watch the sky lighten together and Inej realizes with a jolt that they’ve drawn closer, their shoulders a hair’s breadth apart. Kaz’s hands are bare, for his gloves had vanished in the hours before dawn, and his pale trickster’s fingers lie still on his lap.</p><p>The clock tower chimes. They turn to each other, sunrise forgotten.</p><p>“I should go,” she says, but she does not move. It is selfish of her, perhaps, to want to stay in this moment, bottle it up and carry its soft glow around with her like a charm or a talisman, but she does not move.</p><p>Kaz picks up her hand.</p><p>He lifts it, slowly, deliberately, watching her as steadily as she watches him, and brushes his lips against her knuckles.</p><p>“You will come back?” he asks, though perhaps it is more a statement than a question.</p><p>“You will wait,” she replies, by way of promise.</p><p>He smiles at her, an upward tilt of his mouth and a crinkling around his eyes that is no part Bastard of the Barrel and all parts <em> Kaz </em>. “You’ll be the death of me,” he says.  He stands up, shaking out his bad leg, and pulls her up as well. “Come on, Captain Ghafa, you have slavers to catch.”</p><p>She laughs. “And you have a kingdom to run.”</p><p>“No mourners, Inej.”</p><p>“No funerals.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Kaz</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>kaz pov</p><p>basically the first chapter rewritten in kaz's perspective, with some banter added at the end because it feels wrong to just rewrite something.</p>
          </blockquote><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>if you thought inej pov was angsty and drawn out then ohh boyy...</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>It’s Inej’s last night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t focus on paperwork, or the normal running of the Dregs. He could force himself to, but he doesn’t want to. It’s too… normal. Mundane. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Inej’s last night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He finds himself on the roof before long, watching as the lights in Ketterdam slowly go out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He knows she will come back if she can, but he doesn’t know if she will come back for </span>
  <em>
    <span>him. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He’s just a barrel rat. A lockpick. A thief. A thief who can steal Kuwei Yul-Bo out of the Ice Court but cannot give her what she </span>
  <em>
    <span>wants.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>(It’s Suli tradition to give farewell gifts before a long journey. He’s looked it up. And he knows what gift Inej would wish for, more than knives or flowers or any material object.)</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I will have you without armor, Kaz Brekker, or not at all.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Because that’s it, isn’t it? His armor. His gloves, his name, his masks, his legends. Carefully cultivated and grown until he is a fortress, every action a new wall, every scar he leaves behind a trench of barbed wire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s made himself untouchable, only to realize he doesn’t want to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He wants to give her everything, and that is dangerous. He wants to break like the waves in the Ketterdam harbor, over and over and over again, and that is terrifying. He wants her to </span>
  <em>
    <span>know</span>
  </em>
  <span> him, and that is lethal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s Inej’s last night and reality has spoken: Kaz was a fool to ever fall in— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He swallows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej is a drug, potent, poisonous. He should get up and find her. He should run, as far and fast as he can. In the end, he waits, stares stupidly at the razor-sharp crescent of the moon like a pigeon waiting to be plucked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It isn’t long before Inej arrives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He keeps the silence, unsure of what to say. After a moment, Inej steps forward and sits down next to him. Kaz catches sight of her in the corner of his eye, and his heart stutters.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ghezen, she is beautiful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everything is ready,” she says softly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Words fail him. “I know,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I leave at seven bells tomorrow.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej’s gaze burns into him, and he realizes suddenly how close they are to the edge, Ketterdam sprawling beneath them, around them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ketterdam, his home, and not hers. Not anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words spill out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re here to see if I can offer you more than debts and words and—” he cuts himself off, “I should tell you, shouldn’t I? I should tell you everything. You deserve it. You’ve always deserved it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He turns to her, and some part of him saddens at the surprise he sees on her face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another time. Another place. Another era. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Go on,</span>
  </em>
  <span> she had said. He braces himself. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you know?” he forces himself to ask, and his voice sounds like it’s underwater, “About my brother? About,” he gestures awkwardly at his gloves, unsure of how to put it, “this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Only what you’ve told me. And what you told Rollins.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes it that much harder— She knows, but she doesn’t know anything important. “Ghezen,” he says, something twisting inside of him, “Where do I start?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At the beginning,” she replies, and he hates how collected she seems when it feels like he’s falling apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>At the beginning. Before the harbor, before the plague, before Ketterdam. In the farm, when he was so young and unaware and gullible— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something twists inside of him, wrings the breath out of his lungs. He has to force himself to start. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“His name was Jordie,” he says, and turns to the city, “We grew up on a farm near Lij.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then the words pull themselves out of his throat, automatic, one after the other, each one cutting into the layers he’s wrapped around himself and peeling them back. With the words come the memories. The farm, the boat ride, the swindle, the streets, the plague— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bodymen. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He chokes, falters, falls silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How does he explain it? How does he explain being </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span>, being </span>
  <em>
    <span>alive</span>
  </em>
  <span> when he wasn’t supposed to be. How does he explain callously being pushed on, his firepox sores ripped open, and being smothered by the stench of the dead? The helplessness. The fever, the bodies, and later the barge and the harbor and Jordie and— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej, like an anchor, solid and unwavering. He resents it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He clings on to it.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>It isn’t easy for me either</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finish the story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What you have to know,” he says, biting out the words like curses, “Is that when a plague strikes the Barrel, there’s no escaping it. It’s too crowded here; there’s too many people, and too many people make too many corpses. Bodies pile up in the streets, and they’re not— Sometimes, they’re not all dead. I wasn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The water has risen, is rising, will rise. Nausea turns in his stomach. He’s unmoored. He’s drowning. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The bodymen don’t check, though, because why bother? They just tumble you onto the sickboat and move on. I was too weak to protest when they pushed Jordie on, too weak to cry out when they pushed me on, too weak to say anything when they pushed us off at--”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Reaper’s Barge</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t say it. The words are trapped burning in his throat but </span>
  <em>
    <span>they’re just words. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Just words, yet he’s shaking and he’s suffocating and the city is blurring and why are his cheeks— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Ghezen, no no no</span>
  <em>
    <span> fuck— </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kaz,” Inej says, concerned, and he flinches before he can stop himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pathetic,” he mutters, and he hates himself for it, hates himself for saying it, hates himself for letting anyone see him like this. Kaz Brekker. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Crying.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “Pathetic. What kind of Barrel boss fucking cries— faints— can’t even talk about this without— ”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels sick, he feels bare, raw like someone has peeled back his skin and pulled apart his ribs and pried open his beating heart. Exposed and naked and </span>
  <em>
    <span>weak.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>His gloves are still firmly on his hands, but the leather has never felt so thin before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Kaz,” she says again, and he hears her move and—</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t touch me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wasn’t going to. Breathe, Kaz.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Breathe. He can do that. Breathe. He forces himself to take a gulp of air, then another, and presses his forehead against his knee. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Inej is here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, he thinks wildly. Inej, his could-be executioner, his lifeline. Inej, like an angel. Inej, alive. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Inej.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“We’re on top of the Slat, looking over the Barrel. It is almost two bells. Stay with me, Kaz. What do you need?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The water recedes a fraction. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Talk,</span>
  </em>
  <span>” he manages, the plea ripping itself loose from his throat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A pause. A breath scraping harshly past his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There was a man,” Inej says quietly, “In the Menagerie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Kaz’s vision starts comes back into focus. He latches on to her voice, her meaning, pulls himself away from the ravages of his own mind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He was Ravkan. He’d chosen me because he recognized me, from one of my family shows outside Caryeva. He said he watched me on the high wire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej’s voice wavers, and Kaz realizes what she’s doing. Just as he’s opened some dark door inside of him, stripped himself of his armor, Inej is doing the same. Two monsters sharing scars in the dark, but infinitely more personal.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Oh, Inej</span>
  </em>
  <span>. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When he— took me to bed, that night, I couldn’t escape. Couldn’t leave my body behind, like I usually did, with the past anchoring me there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He looks at her, bold, brave, shoulders squared as if daring the world with her very existence. He tries to imagine her in the Menagerie, surrounded by purple and gold, </span>
  <em>
    <span>helpless</span>
  </em>
  <span>— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Black rage floods into him, and he stops before he is completely consumed by it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That was the worst night,” she says, and Kaz inhales sharply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We will find those slavers,” he promises, “And they will </span>
  <em>
    <span>hurt.</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hurt like Inej had been hurt. Bled dry for what they did to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej turns to him, her eyes peering straight through to his soul. “Go on,” she whispers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His turn. Finish the story. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Does she know what she’s asking of him?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He’s burning himself up, taking himself and his armor apart piece by piece in a brilliant act of self destruction. For her. For himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dirtyhands never does anything in halves, after all. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes another breath to steady himself, curls his gloved hands into fists, then turns back to the city so she cannot see the depth of his shame. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Reaper’s Barge,” he says at last, and the word tastes strange and almost bittersweet on his tongue. “Reaper’s Barge,” he repeats, “They pushed us off there. I woke up surrounded by corpses. Waited for the bodymen to come back, to add more bodies or to burn them, but they didn’t. Shore was far away. I was too weak to swim the distance by myself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Too weak. </span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ask how I got back,” he says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Jordie.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He feels the horror strike her like a blow, and briefly closes his eyes as if that could shutter away his pain or his weakness or her pity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her </span>
  <em>
    <span>pity. </span>
  </em>
  <span>He doesn’t want it, doesn’t need it, doesn’t deserve it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grits his teeth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you know what rotting flesh looks like? Smells like?” he snarls, some black fist closing around his heart, “Feels like, bloated, distended with water, skin sloughing off beneath your fingers?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He crosses his arms over his chest, grips his elbows with gloved hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I do, and I can’t forget. I can’t forget</span>
  <em>
    <span>,</span>
  </em>
  <span> Inej. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> what Rollins did. </span>
  <em>
    <span>That’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> what happened to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He spits his last words into the murky depths of the harbor, and feels his chest heave with it, with the blackness and hatred and an almost feral anger.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then there is quiet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Quiet. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fury ebbs away. Kaz stills. He curls his shoulders inwards and awaits her judgement, hating himself, his weakness, with every ragged breath that escapes into the night.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did it help?” Inej asks finally, her voice soft and low. “Revenge.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes a moment to comprehend the words, and another to remind himself that it’s Inej, it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>Inej</span>
  </em>
  <span> and she deserves every truth he can give her.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Breaking like the waves in the Ketterdam harbor.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks of Jakob Hertzoon on his knees, tears in his eyes, every line of him hatred and desperation. He thinks of Pekka’s empire in ruins, of dark satisfaction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He thinks of years of plotting and years of suffering, of Jordie’s ghost that follows him always, of Kaz Rietveld that died in the harbor and Kaz Brekker that climbed out of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Did it help?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” he says finally, the words like a spear to his heart. A final act of self-annihilation. “Not enough.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>His shoulders slump. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Kaz,” Inej murmurs, and the pain in them hurts and soothes in equal measure. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shivers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you for telling me,” she says, and the words hang between them. Softness. Comfort. All the things that Dirtyhands shies away from, and yet Kaz lets them envelope him like a balm. He turns to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You know everything, now,” he whispers. She looks beautiful in his ruins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can trust me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The words escape without a thought. “I do, Inej, I do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then he sees her eyes widen, sees her lips part as if to say something, and sudden panic seizes in his chest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He can’t he can’t he </span>
  <em>
    <span>can’t—</span>
  </em>
  
</p><p>
  <span>“Inej,” he breathes, a pleading edge to his tone, “Let’s talk about something else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She blinks, and then her eyes are clear with complete understanding. He averts his gaze. He doesn’t know whether to feel relieved or terrified. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is over. All over. The clouds have broken and released the storm. The flood has passed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He trembles with the knowledge of it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej— </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej is speaking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>He listens, half-dazed. Her voice rolls over him, low and gentle and constant, like a stream to wash away the fear and the shame and the darkness that still seeps out from beneath his skin, like a current to clean away the memories. He cannot for the life of him pick out the individual words, but she doesn’t seem to mind. His heartbeat slows. His thoughts calm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She talks. He listens. He rebuilds himself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He breathes in tandem with Inej, in the lapses of comfortable silence, and feels almost… </span>
  <em>
    <span>Whole. </span>
  </em>
  <span>Healed in a way he has not felt for a very long time. Not complete, not at peace, but perhaps a step closer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A rusty smile creeps across his face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inej has always been a better secret-keeper than him. He has trusted everything to her, and it feels right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He glances down at his hands, and, impulsively, pulls his gloves off with a magician’s grace, slipping them into his pocket before Inej notices. That, too, feels right.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He takes a breath, and returns to Inej’s words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“— I don’t have any siblings, you know, but I’m the youngest of five cousins. Or, I was, but Papa says there’s a new one, and one of my cousins is engaged, too, so I’ll need to meet his fiancé—”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you visit them, when you go back to Ravka?” Kaz asks, speaking up for the first time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose I will,” she says simply, without missing a beat, “I miss them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Will you miss me?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re meeting with Sturmhond, aren’t you? You’ll have time. He’s bound to be late.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles, “He would be. He promised me equipment and a Grisha for my crew.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Arrogant git. He should be more concerned that you’ll take his place as most notorious captain of the high seas.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t think he would mind. You really think so?” she muses, “That I’ll be that successful?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” he says, surprised at her doubt, “You’ll be Captain Ghafa of the Wraith,” he mocks, “Vigilante knight in shining armour. Slayer of a hundred monsters, capturer of a thousand slavers, swooping in to save the day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Says the king of Ketterdam. Will you treat your subjects well?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not at all, milady,” he smiles. It’s ludicrous. It’s perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah, so I’m a lady now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Misspoke. You’re the rascal who stole the seas.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re the one who stole the kingdom.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Touché.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The past has taken enough of their night, so they continue speaking of the future. Inej tells him of plans as a pirate, and Kaz offers his insight. In turn, they speculate about the future of the Dregs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The night begins to fade. The dawn tinges the buildings with soft light, and, for a moment, Ketterdam almost gleams.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would you really watch this all burn?” Inej asks softly, gazing at the city.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He shrugs. “You know as well as I that they deserve it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A forest grows back greener after a fire.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Suli idealist. Is that warning or approval?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neither,” she says, “Stay safe, Kaz.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Something flutters in his stomach. “You too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sky lightens. Kaz steals glances of Inej from the corner of his eye like a schoolboy, drinks in her features. The set of her shoulders, the gentle drape of her braid, the curve of her jaw. The contentment that plays with the corners of her lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Too soon, the clock tower chimes, the distant knell of the bells ringing through the silence. He turns to Inej, and finds her already looking at him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I should go,” she says, and Kaz swallows. The night has come to an end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He reaches out for her hand, lifts it up slowly, the memories drowned out by the knowledge that this is the last moment he’ll get to share with her for a long while. He brushes a kiss against her knuckles, and tastes Inej’s warmth on his lips.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You have to let her go.</span>
  </em>
</p><p><em><span>Not yet.</span></em> <em><span>One more moment.</span></em></p><p>
  <span>“You will come back?” he asks, surprised by how level his voice comes out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will wait.” she replies, a blazing promise in her eyes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He smiles. He would wait out eternity for her, and the thought doesn’t scare him as much as it should. “You’ll be the death of me,” he says, and she smiles too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Without letting go of her hand, he stands up, then pulls her up after him. “Come on, Captain Ghafa, you have slavers to catch.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs, and some distant, sentimental part of him registers that it sounds like hot chocolate. Or sunlight. “And you have a kingdom to run.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No mourners, Inej.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Stay safe.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“No funerals.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>feedback always appreciated!</p>
        </blockquote><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm in love with them &lt;3</p></blockquote></div></div>
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